Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

130 BOATMEN OF THE VOLGA.

and the general plan of the towns, are not so. Ya-roslaf has its columns and its triumphal arches in imitation of Petersburg, all of which are in the worst taste, and contrast, in the oddest manner, with the style of the churches and steeples. The nearer I approached this city, the more was I struck with the beauty of the population. The villages are rich and well built: I have seen a few stone houses, though too limited a number to vary the monotony of the view.

The Volga is the Loire of Russia; but instead of the gaily-smiling hills of Touraine, crowned with the fairest castles of the middle ages, we here find only flat, unvaried banks, with plains, where the small, gray, mean-looking houses, ranged in lines like tents, sadden rather than animate the landscape : such is the land that the Russians commend to our admiration.

In walking along the borders of the Volga I had to struggle against the wind of the north, omnipotent in this country throughout the year; for three months of which it sweeps the dust before it, and for the remaining nine, the snow. This evening, in the intervals of the blast, the distant songs of the boatmen upon the river caught my ear. The nasal tones, that so much injure the effect of the national songs of the Russians, were lost in the distance, and I heard only a vague, plaintive strain, of which my heart could guess the words. Upon a long float of timber, which they guided skilfully, several men were descending the course of their native Volga. On reaching Yaro-slaf they wished to land: when I saw them moor their raft, I stopped. They passed close before me, without taking any notice of my foreign appear-